DUBLIN // In the wake of the Christmas market attack in Berlin, Germany finds its state-driven openness towards refugees and migrants severely tested, especially as the country heads into a major federal election next year.
Under Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will be running for her fourth consecutive term in office, Germany took in more than a million refugees in 2015 and 2016, most of them from war-ravaged Syria and Iraq.
But Monday’s attack, in which the assailant drove a lorry into the Christmas market killing 12 people and injuring 48, places Mrs Merkel’s policy under significant pressure.
The Tunisian suspect Anis Amri, who entered Germany in July 2015, has a lengthy criminal record and was denied asylum earlier this year.
The attack is the fourth and most violent incident carried out by a Muslim refugee or immigrant in Germany this year.
Mrs Merkel acknowledged that, if the Berlin assailant was indeed proven to be a refugee, “this would be extremely hard for us to bear… [It] would be particularly repugnant for all those Germans who toil daily to help refugees.”
The Chancellor’s political opponents on the right — including anti-immigrant parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfG) and the National Democratic Party (NDP) — have been quick to blame her policies for the Berlin attack.
“The milieu in which such deeds can thrive has been created through negligence in the past year,” Frauke Petry, the leader of AfG, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
“This case is not an isolated incident… The Christmas market was not a random target. It’s not just an attack on our freedom and our way of life, but also on our Christian tradition,” he said.
“Germany is not safe anymore. It would be the duty of the chancellor to tell you this. Since they won’t do it, I will.”
On Twitter, another AfG politician Marcus Pretzell, went further, calling the victims of the Berlin attack “Merkel’s dead”.
Mrs Merkel’s open-door immigration stance also came under attack from French politician Marine le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Front in France. The French town of Nice experienced a similar attack in July, when a Tunisian man killed 86 people when he ploughed a truck into a crowd.
“The outrage is very strong: How many massacres and deaths where Islamist terrorists are involved will be necessary for our governments to stop bringing a considerable number of migrants into our countries?” Ms le Pen questioned.
Gauri Khandekar, the deputy director of the Brussels-based Global Relations Forum, a foreign policy think tank, noted that, over the past year, the AfG has already made some inroads into the electorate — a sign that its position against immigration is finding some support.
In September’s regional elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania — Mrs Merkel’s home state — the AfG earned 21 per cent of the votes, coming second behind the centre-left Social Democrats, who polled 30.6 per cent. Crucially, the AfG beat Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats in those polls.
"Their main line of opposition is to Merkel's open-door policy towards refugees, with a shift towards anti-Islam rhetoric," Ms Khandekar told The National.
Mrs Merkel has, over the past few months, shifted course perceptibly with regard to migrants and refugees in Germany.
In October, she called for swifter deportations of foreign nationals with no permission to reside in the country. The same month, the head of her government’s federal office for migration and refugees argued that other European countries had to take in their fair share of refugees, saying: “They can’t all come to Germany.”
Far fewer refugees have arrived in Germany this calendar year — just over 200,000 compared to the 890,000 who were permitted to enter in 2015.
Addressing a party conference two weeks ago, Mrs Merkel promised that she would not allow migrants to flood into Germany again as they did in 2015.
She also spoke in favour of banning the full-face veil for Muslim women, even though her party had rejected such a ban last year.
“Here we say: ‘Show your face.’ So full veiling is not appropriate here,” she said. “It should be prohibited wherever legally possible.”
Still, Ms Khandekar said, the sort of discontent that led to the vote for Brexit in the UK in June or the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in the US is missing in Germany.
“The main grievance that has fuelled [shifts] in America and other countries, ie economics, is missing,” she said. “Germany is doing well economically, and most Germans are happy about their country’s leading role in Europe.”
“If the Christian Democrats — as Merkel has accepted — propose a more controlled migration policy, all could be well.”
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
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Banned items
Dubai Police has also issued a list of banned items at the ground on Sunday. These include:
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Political flags or banners
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Bikes, skateboards or scooters
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
Pakistan World Cup squad
Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abid Ali, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez(subject to fitness), Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Junaid Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain
Two additions for England ODIs: Mohammad Amir and Asif Ali
HOW TO WATCH
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Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
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Scores
New Zealand 266 for 9 in 50 overs
Pakistan 219 all out in 47.2 overs
New Zealand win by 47 runs
Janet Yellen's Firsts
- In 2014, she became the first woman to lead the US Federal Reserve
- In 1999, she became the first female chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
